REPORT FOR THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Republic of Fiji, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Nauru, Kingdom of Tonga, and Tuvalu
CANDIDATE: Marie C. Damour
Marie Damour is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor. She currently serves as Consul General of the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Previously, Ms. Damour was the Director of the Office of Maritime Southeast Asian Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs; Director of the Office of Policy Coordination and Public Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs; and the Deputy Chief of Mission, as well as Chargé d’Affaires, a.i, at the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand. Over almost three decades of service, Ms. Damour has worked in five different regions of the world and served successfully in a variety of leadership and policy-making roles. This experience, coupled with over a decade of service focused on East Asia and Pacific affairs, makes her a well-qualified candidate to serve as Ambassador to the Republics of Fiji, Kiribati, and Nauru as well as Tuvalu and the Kingdom of Tonga.
Among her other assignments, Ms. Damour was Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil; the Chief of Non-Immigrant Visa Services and then Chief of Visa Services at the U.S. Embassy in London, England; and the Consular Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She was also Desk Officer for Cambodia and Laos in the State Department and a Special Assistant in the Office of the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., and had posts at the Embassies in Paris, France and Nouakchott, Mauritania.
Ms. Damour earned her B.A. from the College of William and Mary. She speaks French, Vietnamese and Portuguese and is the recipient of multiple State Department performance awards as well as the Peacemaker Medal from the Government of Brazil.